Date

Country

Sites

Region

Africa
Arab States
Asia and the Pacific
Europe and North America
Latin America and the Caribbean

Annual regional meeting of the Arab States’ Focal Points for World Heritage

24-26 November 2013

The second regional meeting of the Arab States’ Focal Points for World Heritage (cultural and natural), will be held in Manama, Bahrain from 24 to 26 November 2013. This meeting, organized by the World Heritage Centre in collaboration with the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH), will be held in the framework of the follow-up to Periodic Reporting in the Arab States and will essentially aim at defining the activities of the World Heritage Regional Programme in 2014.

Within the framework of the implementation of the World Heritage Regional Programme for the Arab States, and with reference to the results and conclusions of the Second Cycle of Periodic Reporting in the Arab States (2008-2010), the first regional meeting of the Arab States’ Focal Points for World Heritage was held in 2012, in Bahrain. This first meeting allowed to identify a series of activities for the year 2013, based on the needs of the region in terms of conservation, protection and promotion of World Heritage.

This second regional meeting will be an opportunity to pursue the reflection initiated by the focal points and the representatives of the World Heritage Centre, of the Advisory Bodies, the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH), and UNESCO’s field offices in the region. This will be based on the priorities of the Regional Programme, adopted by the World Heritage Committee at its 35th session (Paris, 2011):

Implementation of the World Heritage Convention at national level (designation of focal points and establishment of national committees for World Heritage)

Establishment/revision of Tentative Lists

Nomination of properties for inscription on the World Heritage List (focus on natural properties and under-represented categories)

Management of World Heritage Properties (focus on the issue of management of the urban ensembles, espeicllay the historic cities and the issue of threats in time of conflict)

Improvement of the access to information on the World Heritage Convention and its implementation (focus on the translation and diffusion of reference documents in Arabic)

This meeting also aims at encouraging the focal points to exchange more and to reinforce the cooperation between their countries and with the World Heritage Centre as well as the other actors of the World Heritage Convention, including the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH). Established by the Kingdom of Bahrain as Category 2 centre under the auspices of UNESCO, the ARC-WH is dedicated to the implementation of the World Heritage Convention in the Arab region and generously finances the organization of this Regional Meeting.